Author's note: Glad to hear people like this story. Enjoy the second chapter.
For a moment, he thought this was Hell. He clung to the belief. He was still in Hell, and every second he would hear Crowley's voice. He had seen the boys getting turned into demons so often, it didn't matter that he had to go through it again.
But Dean stayed where he was, eyes black, smiling, and there was nothing to tell him that this was another hallucination.
It had to be. It had to be. Dean wouldn't become a demon. Dean was a good person. Even in Hell, his soul wouldn't rot.
"How did you get undead?"
He closed his eyes briefly because this sounded like something Dean would say. Even if the tone was wrong. Dean had never sounded so uncaring, so cruel.
He opened them again and there was the demon, smiling.
"I don't know". The words left his mouth without his permission. He had no intention of talking to that thing, that thing that wasn't Dean, that was posing as him.
"Doesn't matter. Too bad you're not gonna enjoy life long". It advanced towards him, and Bobby, on instinct, pulled out Holy Water and splashed it right in its face.
It didn't react. Bobby had heard of only a few demons who didn't. He had a gun loaded with silver, but it wouldn't do much good.
De – the demon wiped his face with his hand.
"That's all you got? I expected more of a fight".
He had the gun, but he couldn't. He couldn't shoot at Dean. At something that looked like Dean.
"You don't happen to know where Sammy is? I don't want to waste my time".
Sammy. Only Dean had ever been allowed to call Sam Sammy. Bobby got angry. What right had this thing to –
"I'll find him" it said, sounding bored, advancing towards him, knife in hand. Bobby moved back.
He stopped and grinned.
"First, though – "
Bobby eyed the knife. He wondered if he could keep him away with the gun long enough to flee. Probably not. And he wouldn't get far.
He had not come back from the dead to be killed. He was going to find Sam and Dean, dammit, and then they would kill whatever had dared to come here looking like the elder Winchester.
Right now, it wasn't trying to kill him. It let its hand drop, so that the blade was swinging loosely at its side.
"Let's talk".
Bobby had talked to enough demons to know they were annoying, know-it-all, cruel sons of bitches, but it was better than being sliced up, so he said, "Okay. Wanna braid our hair while we're at it?"
It was still grinning. "Don't you have questions?"
"Trust me, I know enough about demons."
"Do you know who I am?"
It was a stupid question, coming from one of them. It was only trying to anger him, and Bobby wouldn't do it the favour.
"Okay, let's try a different question". Its grin became a smile, a strangely human-looking smile that, if not for the black eyes, Bobby would have called kind. This thing was a master at manipulation.
"Am I still a better man than my daddy ever was?"
And everything went still.
They had been alone when he had said those words. Only Dean had ever heard them.
This was Dean.
Dean, his Dean, his good, wonderful Dean, had turned into one of those they hunted.
Bobby moved back without realizing it, his back hitting the wall.
Dean advanced once more, the smile still in place.
"You'll answer me, right? I can't possibly go out there not knowing..."
Wrong. This was wrong.
Torture in Hell had been nothing compared to this. He had known where he was, he had known that he would hear Crowley laughing any moment. This –
Maybe it was the newest trick? Making him think he was back on Earth? He would rather think he was going insane than believe that Dean was a demon.
But this was real. He knew it somewhere deep in his gut. He took out his gun, but even if it had had any effect, if he had had the damn Colt himself, he wouldn't have been able to shoot. Dean knew. His black eyes looked joyful.
How well Bobby remembered that expression on his face. He had seen it when Dean had been a kid and they had been throwing a ball around; when Dean got pie for dessert; when he came back from Hell and they found Sam. He was taking pleasure from torturing him now, his words stabbing him deeper than any knife could.
"I'll have to live without the knowledge, then" Dean commented and advanced. The Blade in his hand was long and strong.
He wouldn't feel much if he just stood there and took it, but he was Bobby Singer, dammit, and he had to at least try what Dean would have wanted him to do.
This wasn't Dean. This was something Dean had turned into. Dean was dead. He repeated it to himself as he brought up the gun to the creature's face.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Really? You know that's not gonna work on – "
Bobby fired. It stumbled back, but remained upright, and Bobby watched with horror as it pulled out the silver bullet between its eyes with its fingers and the wound healed instantly. Whatever this was, it wasn't a normal demon.
"Boy, what have you done?"
He didn't realize he had spoken the words allowed until Dean looked at him the way he had always done when he didn't understand something. He had raised the blade to strike, but didn't. He continued to muster him.
It gave him another stab in the heart that there was something of the kid he'd known in there, something that remembered that these words meant he'd done something stupid.
He waited. There wasn't much else he could do. He couldn't outrun it. He couldn't kill it. It wondered what Sam would do when he found his body.
Then he remembered that Sam wouldn't live to react, and it made him act. Dean was lost – but Sam was still out there, alive. If he wasn't, Dean wouldn't be looking for him.
There was every reason to think it wouldn't work, but he had to try.
Bobby began reciting an exorcism.
Dean merely laughed.
He moved towards him again, his eyes that of a predator.
"I'm disappointed, old man. That all you can come up with?"
But, despite every probability, it had been useful.
He hadn't realized that he'd stalled Dean for quite some time.
Long enough for Sam to return to his room and hear what was going on.
He barged in and fired a round of salt in Dean's chest. He reeled back in obvious pain. No matter how powerful demons were, salt hurt them.
Bobby saw Dean almost fall down in pain and every instinct in him screamed to run forward, make sure his boy was okay. Instead, he got Sam's bag, took out another shotgun and fired more rounds.
"Son of a – " Dean murmured, and only then did Bobby realize that the worst part wasn't that Dean was bleeding.
The worst part was that he was doing it silently.
Dean's chest cavity was all but open, his ribs visible, and he didn't utter a sound. Not until that soft "Son of a – "
Bobby registered they were running out of shells, but before he could signal Sam, the demon looked at them with his bloody face, deep wounds making it almost impossible to trace the face Bobby knew like his own.
He thought for a moment then said, in the same, quiet whisper, "Not worth it".
Then he was gone.
Not worth it.
He had decided it was too inconvenient for him to kill them now.
They leaned against the wall, panting.
"Bobby?"
He looked at Sam. He was confused, and he had lost weight. He looked pale too, and scared.
"Good to see you" Bobby forced out. He sounded flat.